Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Getting out there

"It is the misfortune of us painters that we cannot let beauty alone. We are not content to see and enjoy it. Something uncontrollable makes us go out and try to do something about it." - painter Edwin B. Child, 1935.

Ryan caught me on camera last week, out trying to do something about it, all this wild beauty of Maine. Rocks, water, trees, islands, light. They never go out of style, in my book. Speaking of books, I'm reading Jim Harrison's essays, collected in Just Before Dark (Houghton Mifflin 1999). What a writer! I mean, he's a WRITER! One you avidly read, and you fervently believe. From his notebooks, a brief bit of advice that could easily apply to painters as well as poets, or anyone, really, engaged in an endeavor worth pursuing:

Thank you, Kathleen. I continue on in the Jim Harrison book and his writing makes my skin prickle. The essays involving hunting, and the one about revenge, are tough to read but I made it through. The food pieces, and those about travel, are sublime. In my opinion. I feel I must always say that. I'm sure there are people who dislike his work. Somewhere...?